I'm getting too many good suggestions from readers; so many that I can't keep up with them all. I can't post on all of them, and I don't want to let them go. So here's a quick digest of a few of them:
Microbiome blues. Research on the bacteria in our guts is hot, especially since the reports that bacterial transplants could be effective in treating Clostridium difficile infections. But is it now getting too hot? Lynne Peeples begins her microbiome story at The Huffington Post with this: "The best predictor of our lifelong health may well be the bacteria that live within us…Autism, allergies, asthma, inflammatory bowel disease, diabetes, and obesity are just a few of the conditions now thought to be at least partly tied to the health of our microbial partners." The story has too many mights and maybes; we can't be sure what to believe.
Breaking backs. John Fauber of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel rolls on with another important story about lawsuits being filed over the use of Infuse in spinal surgery. It's part of a series done in collaboration with MedPageToday looking at harmful medical products and doctors' conflicts of interest.
Vitamin D helps; or doesn't. A study in JAMA found limited benefit for Vitamin D in asthma treatment, according to a press release from the Washington University School of Medicine. Not so, says a release from JAMA with the headline "Vitamin D supplementation does not improve asthma treatment, symptoms." The study itself says Vitamin D "did not reduce the rate of first treatment failure or exacerbation in adults with persistent asthma." How did Washington University come up with a limited benefit? Because it didn't read its own release, which says this in the second sentence: "Overall, the ability to control asthma did not differ between a study group that received vitamin D supplements and a group that received placebo." That's a very, very, very limited benefit.
Fantastic journalism. Or so says Conor Friedersdorf of The Atlantic. He's put together a list he calls "Slightly More Than 100 Fantastic Pieces of Journalism." A few qualifiers: Friedersdorf says he didn't read everything published last year. He doesn't include any paywalled articles. And he excludes pieces from The Atlantic. You'll be reminded of things you already read–such as Jon Mooallem's story on crazy ants in The New York Times and Kevin Drum's article on lead and crime in Mother Jones–and things you haven't seen, such as "Seduced by 'perfect' pitch: how Auto-Tune conquered pop music" by Lessley Anderson in The Verge. (You will also find Esquire's "There's a Whole New Way of Killing Cancer," which was far from a favorite here at the Tracker.)
Tales from Oz. Watchdog Keith Kloor of the Collide-a-Scape blog at Discover blasts Dr. Oz for featuring Mike Adams, whose website, Kloor writes, features "conspiracy-laden screeds and paeans to raw foods and unproven alternative medicine treatments." This is far from the first time Oz has spun tales about the benefits of unproven treatments. Kloor worries that the "most trusted doctor in America" is doing more harm than good.
Young blood, and Saving lives with health insurance. Carl Zimmer's story on the transfer of young blood to reverse aging in old mice was one very nice version of that story, and we should have taken note of coverage of the Harvard study that found a 3 percent decline in the death rate in Massachusetts after the expansion of health insurance. Sabrina Tavernese wrote in The New York Times that the decline offered evidence that "the country’s first experiment with universal coverage — and the model for crucial parts of President Obama’s health care law — has saved lives."
-Paul Raeburn
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